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Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

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Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#121

Post by Geee »

r00fus wrote: post #50
Geee wrote: post #45

Most of bitcoin is mined with clean energy. Also, deflationary money is the best thing that can happen to environment. It's time to stop destroying savings in order to accelerate pointless consumption (and production).

> Most of bitcoin is mined with clean energy Do you have a cite for this?

It's just basic economics as renewables are the most profitable. Most of mining happens in China because the regime has overinvested in hydroelectricity and there's lots of unused capacity available.

There's one study I found (not quite recent though): https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2019/06/74-of-bitcoin-min...

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#122

Post by icefrakker »

knuthsat wrote: post #38
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make any number seem small if you compare it to something arbitrarily larger. That doesn’t make the original point invalid, though. Bitcoin’s energy usage is absolutely significant. In a world where we’re chasing a couple percent efficiency improvements here and there, it’s ridiculous that people are promoting a currency that literally incentivized people to perform wasteful computing operations on the scale…

The world is irrational in doing 0.x% improvements on something with a small footprint. I'm waiting for a time where programmers will find it completely rational to optimize the fastest functions in their code. This whole environmental footprint of Bitcoin is absolutely meaningless. It's the most efficient and least destructive waste of energy imagined.

"It's the most efficient and least destructive waste of energy imagined."

Excepting political comments this is the dumbest thing I've read on HN.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#124

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ad31mar wrote: post #104
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this comment before, and honestly I think it's cheap. This article is about a clear, real problem with the current implementation of Bitcoin, namely that it requires enormous amounts of energy. I am not "anti-Bitcoin", I am anti a payment and financial storage protocol that requires gargantuan amounts of energy. So if you have a problem or comment on the article in question, please make it, we're all ears.…

If you were all ears you'd know by now that there's no viable alternative to PoW. Or genuinely cared to find out for yourself for that matter.

> If you were all ears you'd know by now that there's no viable alternative to PoW. Or genuinely cared to find out for yourself for that matter.

I love how people who are the most condescending are also usually the most wrong. Have you never heard of Ethereum 2.0?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#125

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Taek wrote: post #74
yladiz wrote: post #56

I'm very conflicted about this. On one hand, I have a little bit of Bitcoin and am happy about some of the gains I've gotten (not life changing in any sense, but more than I expected). On the other hand I hesitated for a long time to buy any because I knew of the large environmental impact that its energy use has (yes, I really did avoid buying Bitcoin for a long time because I roughly knew of the environmental/energ…

I'm of the mind that the government shouldn't be regulating how resources are used. It makes sense to me to regulate the manufacturing of resources - for example regulating pollution levels, dumping, etc. - but once you have a resource the market should decide how that resource should be put to use. If we've decided that we're happy producing X much electricity as a society using nuclear, wind, solar, coal, etc, we s…

Bitcoin is unique in that anyone with a power outlet and internet connection can plug hardware in and start converting energy to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining was a problem in college dorms for a while because students used their “free” electricity and cooling to pay for new video cards. Many landlords had to abandon “utilities included” rents when they were hit with the first $500 electric bill. IT administrators have stories of catching people trying to hide mining equipment in closets or under their desks.

But coiners are trying to get ahead of the narrative by planting articles about how mining is actually powered by hydro dams in Mongolia. Not only is this not true, but it would be quite a problem if the mining had become so massively centralized.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#126

Post by cryptica »

coralreef wrote: post #46

Funny trend: solar and wind power are now cheaper than coal. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/11/Price-of-electric... Here's a hot take: Bitcoin subsidizes clean energy development. Miners buy cheap energy; clean energy infrastructure gets profitable return. Cost of development and manufacturing lowers further because of scale; pollution and externalities reduced; humanity wins. Bitcoin saves humanity?

Yeah of course, my electricity comes from renewable sources but my neighbor's electricity comes from fossil fuels... I can feel it in my gut. I'm a good person as evidenced by how much money I was able to accumulate so my electricity could only come from a good place like everything else in my wonderful life. I'm not making this up, my spiritual advisor told me so multiple times... Also I donated a bunch of money to Greta Thunberg... So much positive energy in my life. Only positive energy.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#127

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

rawtxapp wrote: post #89
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investments are made to fund value creation. What value did they create? If the underpinnings of an economy accrue value purely to speculators while devaluing (in BTC-relative terms) actual assets and value creation, it has a major incentive problem. What’s the one and only thing Bitcoiners want you to do with Bitcoin? Buy. That’s it. Any other use, including spending, is actively discouraged.

The value they created is a currency that's not controlled by a select few people.

1) Not a currency, 2) Debateable that it's value at all, and 3) "controlled by a select few people" is a remarkably paranoid/conspiracy way to frame that central banking is a necessary function of government.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#128

Post by ad31mar »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #124
ad31mar wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were all ears you'd know by now that there's no viable alternative to PoW. Or genuinely cared to find out for yourself for that matter.

> If you were all ears you'd know by now that there's no viable alternative to PoW. Or genuinely cared to find out for yourself for that matter. I love how people who are the most condescending are also usually the most wrong. Have you never heard of Ethereum 2.0?

I should've known this was a preamble to shill yet another shitcoin...

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#129

Post by mamon »

mpfundstein wrote: post #92
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of wind and solar was going down already. Bitcoin alone isn’t the driver. Bitcoin is, however, consuming some of that new energy generation with a new consumption: Doing useless calculations to mine Bitcoin. Bitcoin increases energy demand which also drives an increase in supply . We can’t take old power plants offline if the new hydro power is taken up by new mining operations. It’s silly that we’re going to su…

the calculations make sure the btc network works. so it can't be useless. or do you dismiss ALL of btc as useless?

That's exactly how "Proof of Work" consensus algorithm works: hasking a single block has to waste enough electricity to make forking the blockchain too costly.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#130

Post by bryanlarsen »

coralreef wrote: post #116
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of wind and solar was going down already. Bitcoin alone isn’t the driver. Bitcoin is, however, consuming some of that new energy generation with a new consumption: Doing useless calculations to mine Bitcoin. Bitcoin increases energy demand which also drives an increase in supply . We can’t take old power plants offline if the new hydro power is taken up by new mining operations. It’s silly that we’re going to su…

Costs go down with scale; scale comes from demand. Energy on earth is not a finite, limited resource. Fossil fuels are finite, but energy is not. The earth is bombarded with more potential energy every day then we could ever spend, aka solar energy.

There is already massive demand for energy, and massive investments in reducing the cost of energy, especially green energy. Scaling benefits come from order of magnitude increases in demand, not single digit percentage increases in demand.
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